liable to be contested, if they were mere animated with this invigorating flame, which, as it, were, gives life to the representations of the stage. We remember when Mrs. Elmy, an actress of great judgment, endowed with a sweet voice and a pleasing deportment, obtain'd a merited applause in the Character of Lavinia in the Fair Penitent; fo great, that it startled the Calista in the fame play; and had Califta been any body but Mrs. Cibber, would unquestionably have made Lavinia the first character in the performance for that night. The sweetness of disposition, tenderness, af fection, and fidelity of that part suited extremely well with the peculiar turn of this actress; they gave her room to shew all her perfections, and gave us no opportunity to fee her defects; we were charm'd with her; nay, many were in doubt whether they should declare her the second, or the first actress of the present stage. Full of the success of this, she appeared again in her other characters afterwards; but we then not only found her of fomewhat less merit than we had before esteemed her, but we discovered too the defect which kept down all her other perfections. We name this to the lady not by way of cenfure or reproach, but to tell her, in honest friendship, the only thing the wants, in order to her being as great in every character, as she was in that of Lavinia. The one thing wanting in her is, that Promethean heat, that fire we have been just now speaking the praises of. How far she can attain this, by practice, she herself will best judge, when the examines her own heart, and finds whether nature has left her deficient in it, or whether it is only a false modesty that prevents her using it. How How fine a figure did this judicious speaker make in fome parts of the character of the Lady in Comus; but how cold, how (not to fpare the word) contemptible did her want of fire make her appear, when, with little more heat than we have just mentioned in the memorable Hotspur, she said to the god who was courting her by arguments against virtue and chastity, to him who dares Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words pofe. Thou hast not ear nor foul to apprehend; shake Till all thy magic structures, rear'd so high, It is easy to conceive what transport and vehemence the poet intended should accompany these words, by the uncommon strength he has given them; and we may imagine how strongly he intended an audience should be affected by them, when he introduces the immortal being to whom they were address'd; to use his own words, trembling with terror as he hears them. As when the wrath of Jove 'Tis impossible for words of so much force to be heard without being admired; but we appeal to the audience, whether that admiration was not all that was felt when this lady spoke them! We loft the terror that should have accompanied fo bold, fo nobly daring a speech; and, in fine, we admired the poet, while we forgot the actress. The propofitions we have deliver'd in this chapter will never be call'd in question by any one who knows how to avoid the common error of confounding the vehemence of declamation with true and genuine spirit, or who will properly reflect on the nature of that quality, and by this means find, that this fire, which we are celebrating in the player, is nothing more than a just rapidity of thought, and vivacity of difpofition, in concurrence with which only it is, that all the other qualities that constitute him a good one, are happy in giving the marks of reality to his performance. When this principle is establish'd, it is easy to conclude from it, that an actor can never have too much fire; since it is impossible that the representation of his character can ever have too much the air of a reality: and, consequently, that the impression on his mind can never be too ready or too lively; nor can the expreffion of it anfwer too fuddenly, or too faithfully to the impulse he receives from it. A performer will, indeed, be very feverely cen fur'd, and veryjustly too, if his playing be not in all refpects 1 respects confonant with, and perfectly agreeable to the character and circumstances of the perfon he represents; or if, under the intent of manifefting his fire, he only exhibits a fet of convulfive geftures, or roars out a parcel of inadequate exclamations. But, in this case, the people of taste and judgment will not accuse him of having too much fire, but too little understanding; they will even complain, under these very circumstances, of his wanting fire; and he will find himself under the fame fort of cenfure with certain modern books, which the vulgar accuse of having too much wit in them, but which these sort of judges condemn for having no wit at all! There is not, perhaps, a scene on the modern stage in which an actor is required to feel more, or to express himself with greater force and real fire, than that of Caffio, in Othello, after the mifchiefs of his drunken fit. An honest, brave, good-natur'd man is, in this play, feduced by a villain to drink, with intent to breed a quarrel; he gets drunk, he quarrels, he behaves very ill, and his superior officer coming in, he is broke for it upon the spot. Rage here takes the place of drunkenness, and too much fire cannot shew itself in his expreffion of that rage; but we find that a false fire may easily be thrown into it. What can be more natural, more beautiful, than the expreffions the inimitable author of this play throws into his mouth upon this occafion. Reputation! reputation!-I have lost my reputation-I have lost the immortal part of myfelf, and all that remain is beftial-my reputation!- thou invincible spirit of wine, if thou haft no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil I Devil-O that men shou'd put an enemy What infinite room is there in these broken fentences, for an actor who has the true fire of his profession in him, to get himself applaufe ! Yet so it has happen'd that in our time, nothing has been made of it: We have had no tolerable Caffio in my remembrance; and these inimitable passages have either been pronounc'd with all the drawling fedateness of a philosopher; or bawl'd out with noise instead of vehemence; with madness instead of fire, and accompany'd with geftures only reconcileable to an imagination of the players being drunk in earneft. An author in the distribution of what he calls the good things in a comedy, throws a delicacy of fentiment and a polite wit into the character of a footman, or a chambermaid; or puts madrigals and epigrams into the mouth of an actor, agitated by fome of the most violent passions; and the vulgar give him for this the credit of having too much wit: It wou'd be more just to determine of him that he had too little judgment, and was but very poorly qualify'd in that most material of all the requifites of an author for the stage, the imitation of real life; let us not call the one of these abfurdities wit, or the other playing with fire. We may add that many an actor in performing a favourite part, gives himself up to an extravagance of paffion in places where the sense of the author, and circumstances of the character i : |